How to Begin “Re-evaluation Counseling”
If you have heard of Re-evaluation Counseling
and of the advantages of using it in your life, and
are eager to try it, the following will help you get
started.
In its basic form, the practice of Co-Counseling
simply consists of two people taking turns listen-
ing to each other. It’s like a conversation in some
ways, but it’s different, too. It’s a more careful,
effective kind of listening. We are talking about
listening and paying attention to what you hear. It is
thinking about the person who is saying it, and
thinking about what he or she is saying, without
interrupting the listening by offering suggestions
or comments, but simply listening wholeheart-
edly.
TAKE TURNS LISTENING
It’s simple to get started. It just takes two people.
Find a friend (or co-worker or spouse) who will try
it with you. Agree that you will take turns listening
to each other without interruption for an equal
amount of time, and agree how long that time will
be. Then decide who is going to listen first. The other
person then talks about whatever he or she wants
to talk about. The listener just pays attention and
doesn’t interrupt to give advice or comment or tell
how he or she feels.
After the agreed-upon time, the talker becomes
the listener, and the one who listened first now talks
about anything he or she wants to talk about.
It’s a fair exchange. Neither person owes anything
to the other. Afterwards, both people usually feel
refreshed and think more easily. It’s fun, too.
This is good to do whenever you get a chance. As
you listen this way more times, you get to know each
other better and like each other more and more.
You also get better at listening. The whole pro-
cess becomes more effective the more times you use
it.
Co-Counseling “turns” or “sessions” can be as
long or as short as you have time for. Even a few
minutes shared with your Co-Counselor can make
a big difference in how you are able to think and
function, and two hours shared is that much better.
1
GETTING ONE’S FEELINGS “OUT”
Sometimes the person talking (the “talker” or the
“client”) may begin to laugh or cry or speak loudly,
or sometimes tremble or yawn. This is a fine thing
to have happen. It simply means that the person is
tense about something, perhaps feeling some em-
barrassment or grief or fear or physical discomfort,
and she or he is releasing the tension this way. She
or he is becoming “un-embarrassed,” “un-sad,” “un-
afraid.” We sometimes call any release of tension in
these ways “discharge.” The person listening (the
“counselor”) can feel pleased and relaxed if this hap-
pens, and just continue to pay attention to the client
without trying to stop any discharge that is occur-
ring. If the client stops his or her own discharge, the
listener can reassure him or her that it is fine to con-
tinue.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
This is the basic idea of Co-Counseling—two
people take turns listening to each other. You can
make many changes in your life just by knowing
and doing this.
If you’re reading this with someone, you might
want to stop reading at this point and try listening
to each other, ten minutes each way. Afterwards, tell
each other what your impression was.
Once you have “Co-Counseled” a few times with
the same person, take time to talk it over and see
what you each think of the experience. How did you
like having someone listen to you without interrupt-
ing? Did you enjoy it? How did you like listening
without interrupting?
Would you like to continue trying this? You can
read on for more information about how to do this
well.
WHAT TO DO IN A SESSION
Time spent listening to each other without inter-
ruption is often called a “session.” Below are some
things that you can experiment with doing in your
sessions.
“News and Goods”
You can start your session as client by telling your
counselor about “good” things, big or small, that
have happened lately. It could be the beautiful sun-
set you saw last night, or your new job, or a problem
you figured out last week. The idea is to give your-
self a chance to notice the things that are going well.
(This is especially a good idea if you feel discour-
aged. It helps remind you that maybe things aren’t
as bad as they feel.) Sometimes people spend whole
Co-Counseling sessions just telling “news and
goods” and leave feeling much more positive and
thinking more clearly.
Recent Upsets
If something has happened recently that you are
upset about, a Co-Counseling session is a good place
to talk about it. You can tell as much or as little about
it as you would like, and you can tell it once or you
can tell it over and over. You will probably find that
lots of your problems seem to get much smaller if
you just get a chance to talk about them without
someone trying to give you advice or solve them for
you. You will find, more often than not, that you can
think of a good solution if you just have someone
hear you out and show some confidence in you while
you feel upset and talk about the problem.
Troubles from the Past
If you use your turn as client to talk about some-
thing that is bothering you, you can sometimes, af-
ter you have had a chance to talk about the upset for
awhile, ask yourself (or your counselor can ask you),
“What does this situation or this feeling remind you
of? When have you felt like this before?” You will
almost always think of some situation from the past
that was hurtful or upsetting in a similar way. It will
be plain that old feelings from that time are still lin-
gering in your mind, adding more confusion and bad
feelings to the present situation than there would
otherwise be. If you can talk about the earlier situa-
tion, what happened then, how you felt, and how it
affected you, some of those old bad feelings can then
be discharged, leaving you with a fresher look at the
present difficulty.
2
Life Stories
If you come to your session as client and there
seems to be nothing in your present life that you need
to talk about, try telling your life story. Most people
have never had a chance to tell the whole story of
their life, and everyone needs a chance to do this. As
you tell the story of your life, certain incidents will
seem more important in their effect on you, good or
bad, than others. These incidents are worth coming
back to and talking about many times in Co-Coun-
seling sessions. Getting a chance to review them over
and over, with someone who is really listening, can
make a surprising difference in your thinking. Bad
feelings left over from old, hurtful experiences (in-
cluding experiences that you thought were “behind
you”) can come to the surface and discharge, leav-
ing you with a lighter step and freer thoughts. Good
experiences, when reviewed with the attention of a
good listener, can also help bad feelings from old,
difficult times to discharge, and this can help you
regain a positive outlook.
Self-Appreciation
Most of us have been belittled or mistreated
enough that it is now difficult for us to feel good
about ourselves. We have been “blamed” for things
when we were doing our best. We have been told
many untrue things. We have been told that if we
like ourselves, we are “conceited” and that we
shouldn’t feel good about ourselves. This isn’t true.
People need to feel good about themselves. When
we do feel good about ourselves, we treat other people
better, not worse.
In a Co-Counseling session when you are client,
tell your counselor what you like about yourself. Tell
this to him or her in a tone of voice that sounds like
you are proud of yourself (not “superior,” just
proud). Tell your counselor this over and over. You
may find it difficult, but stick with it. Don’t stop your-
self from laughing or crying or any other type of dis-
charge. Try to appreciate everything about yourself
(EVERYTHING). When you notice which things feel
harder to appreciate (for example, how you look or
how smart you are), focus on appreciating those
things. You will probably remember incidents from
your life of being criticized, blamed, or mistreated.
These incidents will be good to look at and talk about
in a counseling session when you are client.
Goals
It helps your life go better to set goals for yourself
or review your progress towards goals that you have
already set. This is a useful thing to do when you
are client in a Co-Counseling session. Talk through
the different periods of your life, tentatively decid-
ing what you want to accomplish tomorrow, next
week, this year, in the next five years, in the next
twenty years, in your lifetime. As you talk about each
future period, you can think through the steps that
you will need to take to reach these goals.
Occasionally reviewing your goals and any ap-
parent obstacles will tend to assist you in achieving
them.
Letting Discharge Continue
If you talk about something as client that results
in lively talking, laughter, tears, shaking, sweating,
or yawning (all forms of discharge), don’t rush on
to something else. Try repeating what you were say-
ing or doing several times until you are no longer
discharging. It’s worth doing this over and over for
as much time as you can take. The greatest benefits
of Co-Counseling come after these releases of ten-
sion. They make it possible to think and act in ways
that have been inhibited before.
Ending a Session
At the end of a Co-Counseling session, especially
if you’ve been talking about something difficult for
you, take a few moments to re-direct your thoughts
to something you are looking forward to, or to some
simple subject you don’t feel tense about, for ex-
ample, the names of some friends or some favorite
foods, or some scenery that you enjoy looking at.
This helps make a relaxed change from being a cli-
ent to becoming a counselor if it is your turn to do
this, or to going on to other activities.
For each person to feel safe to talk about what-
ever he or she needs to, it works best to agree that
you won’t discuss it with anyone later. Also, keep in
mind that alcohol and drugs interfere with the good
effects of discharging.
3
SUPPORT GROUPS
It also works well to get a small group of people
together to take turns listening to each other. (In RC
we call this a “support group.”) Each person gets a
roughly equal amount of time to talk while the rest
of the group listens.
One person acts as the leader of the group to help
the group decide how much time each person will
get, who will go first, and so on. When each person
has had his or her turn as client, you can end the
group meeting with each person getting a chance to
say what he or she liked best about being in the group
meeting or something he or she is looking forward
to.
Support groups can meet as often or as many times
as the group members wish. The group can be a
group of friends, co-workers, neighbors, or people
with a similar background or interest. Sharing some-
thing in common with the group often helps people
feel safer to talk about things they need to talk about.
For example, there have been support groups of
women, men, parents, young people, working-class
people, people of a certain ethnic group or religion,
disabled people, artists, and many others.
Inviting friends to the group is a good way to in-
troduce more people to Co-Counseling. If the group
becomes too large, it can be divided and a second
group formed with a new leader chosen for the new
group. About eight people seems to be the optimum
size for a group, but they can function well both
smaller and larger.
Support groups are a good structure for people
from a similar background or similar situation to use
to talk about what they like about being a part of
that group and what they are proud of about the
people from that group. Support groups are also
good for talking about what has been hard, what they
wish people understood about their group, what
hopes and dreams they have for people from their
group, and what they would like to do in relation to
that group.
For example, in a women’s support group, each
woman would get a turn sharing what she likes about
being a woman, what has been hard about being a
woman, what she would like men to understand
about women, how she would like to see women’s
lives improve, and what ways she would like to reach
out to other women.
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE
If you try Co-Counseling and you decide that
you’d like to learn more, you may get in touch with
the main Re-evaluation Counseling office (look
below for the address and phone number), and ask
that office if there are any Co-Counselors who live
near you. You could also order a few introductory
publications. Some good readings to start with are:
The Human Side of Human Beings (the theory of RC),
$4.00 (US)
The Fundamentals of Co-Counseling Manual (the
beginning practice of RC), $6.00 (US)
The Art of Listening (an introductory talk about RC),
$2.00 (US)
An Introduction to Co-Counseling (a very short
description of RC), $1.00 (US)
The Human Situation (essays on different topics),
$6.00 (US)
Present Time (a general journal published four
times a year), $4.00 (US)
Videotapes and audiotapes are also available.
(They are all in English, but we do have different
video formats for different countries as well as
typed transcripts for each videotape.) Someone at
the main office can tell you which ones might be
good for you to start with.
If you can’t afford to pay for literature, explain
this to the office and ask if it is possible for Out-
reach Funds to pay for some literature in order for
you to get started.
If you are very interested in learning more about
RC and know other people who are eager to learn,
we may be able to send a teacher to your group or
bring one of you to a workshop.
There is an RC web site on the internet,
www.rc.org, with lots of information and articles.
If you are in an area which does not yet offer RC
classes but you can connect to the internet, you
might find the on-line “class” on this web site help-
ful.
People who use Re-evaluation Counseling find
that it helps them think better, improve relation-
ships, stand up for the right things, and enjoy life
more. Co-Counselors usually get “smarter” as they
use RC, and they get better at using it. They teach
other people about RC and teach them how to teach
other people, so that in some places lots of people
are using RC, holding classes and workshops, learn-
ing from each other, and supporting and encour-
aging each other.
We have literature published in about thirty dif-
ferent languages, written by Co-Counselors from
all over the world, with stories about using RC and
with RC information about people of different ages,
backgrounds, and situations.
There are a few ground rules and a set of “Com-
munity Guidelines,” which help Co-Counselors
keep things well organized.
Good luck.

The International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities

719 Second Avenue North
Seattle, Washington 98109, USA
Telephone: 206-284-0311
FAX: 206-284-8429
E-mail: ircc@rc.org
Web site: http://www.rc.org/

Copyright © 1996 by Rational Island Publishers

ISBN: 1-885357-46-X